Chapter 3
Talisa
The dining hall was the largest building I’d ever been inside.
Soaring cross-vaulted ceilings arched between slender carved stone columns that reminded me of birch tree trunks.
Massive mage lights floated high overhead, casting golden light over the crowds of mage-students jostling for elbow space at long tables of polished oak.
Their voices filled the cavernous space with a deafening roar of conversation and laughter.
I halted, momentarily overwhelmed by the noise and mass of people. I looked around for somewhere to sit, then headed for a nearby table with enough space to fit the twins and me.
“I wouldn’t sit there if I were you,” said a male voice flavored with the lilt of the southern Dominion.
I stopped at a touch on my elbow and turned to find a tall young man with clear amber eyes and a lopsided smile. He had striking, sharp-boned features beneath a mane of wavy chestnut hair, and was dressed in expensive-looking brown and green clothes trimmed with gold ribbon.
An invisible bolt shot like an arrow through my chest and zipped down my spine as my gaze met his. It felt just like when a spell or charm had backfired, leaving me off-balance and a little dazed.
“Why not?” I asked.
His smile twisted into something bitter. “Because those tables are reserved for the aristos. Us commoners get to sit over there.” He pointed across a wide aisle separating the tables in the middle of the hall from those placed around the perimeter on three sides of the dining hall.
Now that he’d mentioned it, I noticed the division, too.
The students wearing the fanciest clothes decorated with embroidered coats-of-arms on their chests or sleeves occupied the center rows of tables, closer to the low raised platform at the center of the hall where a group of mage-instructors and academy staff dined.
Grateful that he’d just saved me from a major gaffe, I said, “Thank you.”
The newcomer chuckled. “My pleasure. I figured you three were the late arrivals I heard about. I’m Elio Ferraro, from Baleares in Espola.
” He scanned me quickly, but I had the impression that he noticed everything about me.
He added, “And I’m happy to see that I won’t be the only older first-year student here. ”
“Talisa of Bernswick,” I said. “And these are my sisters—”
My sisters interrupted, “Mira.”
“Juno.”
“And where’s Bernswick?” Elio smiled down at me, and I felt that odd zing of sensation again.
“On the Isle of Abbonay, in the Western Isles Province,” I replied.
His dark brows shot up. “I’ve never met anyone from the Western Isles before. Is it true that fish-men live among you? And Fae?”
I shook my head. “No, of course not! Some of our neighbors back home claim that they had a Fae great-great grandmother, but I’ve never seen a merman or mermaid. The fishermen love to tell stories about them, though.”
“Huh. Interesting.” He put a friendly hand on my shoulder. “Let me steer you over to the food line. Meals are pretty good here, probably because of the aristos.”
Still asking questions about the Western Isles, as if they were some mythic realm instead of ordinary islands filled with farmers and fisherfolk, Elio walked us over to the back of the dining hall and a long counter lined with steaming pans and trays piled high with bread rolls.
White-aproned kitchen staff filled plates and bowls, put them on trays, and handed them to the waiting line of students.
Elio, the twins and I were waiting our turn in the long queue when I saw him.
The most beautiful man I’d ever clapped eyes on.
He moved with effortless grace, tall and lithe, his shoulders straight beneath his immaculately tailored academic gown.
Unlike the plain black fabric of the one I’d been issued, the Academy’s crest and the words “Second Year” embroidered on the collar of his gown were stitched with gold thread that caught the light with each movement.
A coat of arms with a snarling wolf-head and a fir tree was embroidered over his heart.
But it was his face that held me transfixed. His sculpted features seemed too perfect to be human, with skin like polished marble, and eyes that even from a distance gleamed an impossible shade of green.
His hair was a lustrous black that fell past his shoulders in thick, shining waves. A golden-haired giant walked next to him.
“That’s Lord Lukhan FitzMurad,” Elio murmured, noticing my staring. “He’s the bastard son of former imperial councilor Baron Murad of Demirkalé. I’d steer clear of him and his hulking brute of a friend there.”
“But why—” I began, still unable to tear my gaze away from Lord Lukhan.
“Because he’s dangerous?” Elio interrupted.
I glanced over at him and saw the smile had vanished from his mobile expression.
“His father may have lost imperial favor and his council seat, but Lord Lukhan rules this academy. The mage-instructors here all adore him, and the students either worship or fear him. There’s no middle ground with Lord Lukhan.
” Elio paused, and his voice dropped to a whisper.
“I can’t stand him. And his best friend, Damien Corvellan, isn’t any better.
He’s General Corvellan’s son, and a Varro on his mother’s side. ”
I had no idea who the Varros were, but even I’d heard of the famous General Lucius Corvellan.
I nodded my thanks for the warning, but something about Lord Lukhan continued to draw my eye. There was a quality to his beauty that nagged at me, something familiar yet out of place. I’d seen similar features before, back home in Bernswick, where—
The realization hit me suddenly. Of course.
The perfect symmetry, the unnatural grace, the intensity of his coloring—all markers of Fae blood.
In the Western Isles, the boundaries between the island settlements and our Fae neighbors on the other side of the Caelrith Straits had blurred centuries ago.
Back home, such heritage was common, even celebrated.
Like I’d told Elio, some of our neighbors in Bernswick boasted of a Fae ancestor several generations back, though any resemblance and most magical talents had thinned in the two centuries since the Isles were folded into the Human Dominion and the Supernatural Relations Act was passed.
Lord Lukhan and Corvellan were walking directly toward me.
I should have stepped aside. I should have lowered my eyes. Instead, I stood frozen, openly staring as he approached. His emerald gaze locked with mine, one eyebrow arching slightly in what might have been amusement or annoyance.
“You’re blocking the way, commoner.” Damien’s cold gray gaze raked over me, and his lip curled.
“Are you both trying to cut the line?” I asked incredulously.
The blond youth made a show of scanning the line. “I don’t see anyone ahead of you who outranks us.” His tone was as frigid as his expression.
“That’s not fair.” I was tired from a long day of travel, and hungry. It had been a long time since our midday meal aboard the ferry.
Lukhan raised a hand, stopping both me and his blond henchman. He studied me and my sisters with unsettling intensity, his head tilting slightly.
“The three of you are new here,” he said, his voice smooth and cultured. “Provincials, I assume?”
Something in his tone—a hint of condescension, perhaps—sparked my stubborn pride. “I’m Talisa of Bernswick,” I replied, matching his direct gaze. “From the Western Isles.”
“Ah, the very fringe of civilization,” he remarked, prompting titters from some of the other students waiting in line.
The slight stung, but I hung onto my composure. Maybe if I flatter him a little?
In what would prove to be the most catastrophic social error of my life, I forced myself to smile up at him. “You’re very handsome. Do you perhaps have Fae ancestry?”
The dining hall seemed to freeze. A deathly silence fell as nearby conversations halted abruptly. Lukhan’s face transformed before my eyes. The polite mask dropping away to reveal naked terror that flashed for just a heartbeat before congealing into cold, calculated fury.
“What did you just say to me?”
Too late, I remembered the oath I’d just taken. And realized my mistake. Here on the mainland, Fae heritage could get you expelled from the academy.
“I—I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I meant no insult, honestly. Back home, in the Isles, it’s considered—”
“You dare to slander me and my family,” he cut me off, his voice now carrying so everyone nearby could hear, “by suggesting that my bloodline is tainted?”
Damien moved closer and loomed over me like a predator scenting weakness. The dining hall had gone so quiet I could hear my blood pounding in my ears.
“No, I—I— only meant—”
“Let me explain something to you, provincial,” Lukhan continued, his beautiful face transformed by contempt. “Here, in the civilized world, we don’t make wild accusations about people’s bloodlines. But I shouldn’t expect better from an island hick.”
His gaze raked over me, stopping at my comfortable but travel-worn shoes peeking from beneath the hem of my traveling gown. My sisters and I had left our new, ugly academic robes back in our new rooms, reasoning that we wouldn’t need them since classes didn’t begin until tomorrow.
“Did you inherit that dress from your great-grandmother? The pattern must have been fashionable way back then. And—Divine Mother!—that accent of yours! It’s like listening to a fishwife on market day.”
Laughter erupted around us, cruel and cutting. My face burned with humiliation as I stood rooted to the spot.
“Perhaps in your village, Miss Fishwife, you’re allowed to address your betters without permission,” the blond young man at Lukhan’s side added. “Here, they mark you as an outsider who doesn’t belong. Remember that before you speak to us again.”
∞∞∞
Lukhan
The peasant girl’s words sliced through me like a blade of ice. Fae features. She’d said it so casually.
For one terrible moment, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, as terror surged through my veins like poison.